


Dive into the Churn (of humanity)

by redspottywellies



Series: I'm Sensing a Trip to Ikea [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Being Human (UK) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 16:58:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14000550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redspottywellies/pseuds/redspottywellies
Summary: “Listen. The whole point of getting the house, getting jobs at the hospital, acting like we’re, you know, human – it’s about quality of life, yeah? We get established, we make connections, we work out a system for handling the messy bits-”“You mean like the constant danger of us accidentally murdering everyone we know and care about.”“Yeah, those bits."AKA an anxious werewolf and a vampire on a self-improvement kick decide to try and live like normal humans, and it goes about as well as expected





	Dive into the Churn (of humanity)

**Author's Note:**

> -So I've got a shit ton of uni work to get done and an entire WIP to finish but hey, let's start up a whole new project that's a great idea 
> 
> -Ok so far I'm thinking this is gonna be a series of one-shots set in the same AU rather than a full-on story but that might change later 
> 
> -Less angst and murder than the original series, and focused mainly on the roommate shenanigans vibe more than the whole Vampire Apocalypse and Evil Conspiracy stuff bc honestly who can be arsed

The house wasn’t anything even resembling perfect.

The paint on the front door was flaking away. The water pipes groaned loudly and sporadically. The whole place smelled of damp and plaster dust. There was a huge buddleia bush growing unchecked around the drainpipe outside, blocking the front window and casting the living room in shadow. The pavement around the front step was littered with cigarette butts and sweet wrappers and empty White Lightning bottles.

The inside was dank and creepy, despite the cheerful wallpaper and brightly coloured carpets still visible under the dustsheets and water damage. This wasn’t improved when the estate agent uncomfortably explained how the current landlord used to live in the house with his best friend, until said best friend died falling down the stairs just over a year ago.

She watched their expressions warily as they considered this. “All the viewers before you left straight away when they found out,” she said. “Said it was just too weird.”

Sirius and Remus exchanged a glance. Remus shrugged and went back to checking the skirting boards for mouse holes.

Sirius turned back to the estate agent with a grin. “I think this’ll suit us just fine.”

* * *

 “Starting to regret this decision,” Remus said a few days later, peering around the TV he was carrying to eye the stained walls warily. “The rent on this place is way too cheap, even with all the plumbing issues. And that estate agent was _way_ too relieved when we signed the final papers.”

“You worry too much,” Sirius said cheerfully, dumping the last of the boxes on the hallway floor and straightening up to stretch. “We’ll get a plumber in, maybe get a dehumidifier for the damp, slap some paint on the walls, it’ll be good as new. Hell, maybe we can even get the landlord to do it for us when he finally shows his face.”

Remus snorted. “How can you have lived as long as you have and still be so clueless? The landlord’s not gonna sort shite unless he’s actively in danger of being sued.”

Sirius shrugged. “He might be alright, you never know. Maybe he just comes across as a prick in emails because he doesn’t know how to communicate in writing properly, I’ll tell you, letter writing is a lost art-”

“Let’s not,” Remus cut him off, recognising the look Sirius got when he was about to go off on a tear about how the past was Just Better Okay and not wanting to waste the whole day arguing over the merits of text-based communication. “Look, his name’s Snape. _Severus Snape,_ Sirius. Don’t try and tell me that’s the name of a nice bloke who’s only been horribly misunderstood. That’s a kid who spent his school years snitching on his classmates and getting more and more bitter with every retaliating wedgie.”

“Are you really sure you want to start judging people on their names, Lupin? Are you really sure that’s a road you personally want to go down?”

“…Shut the fuck up and help me get the telly connected. We’re missing Bake-Off.”

* * *

 It only took about a week of settling in for life as Normal Humans for things to start going a bit strange. The first hint of it came when they were in the kitchen, getting ready to leave for the nightshift at the hospital. Remus was sat on the countertop, eating cold chips and using duct tape to reattach the sole of one of his trainers. Sirius was at the table, drinking tea out of a snowman mug he’d nicked from the breakroom and trying to do a crossword. His progress was somewhat impeded by the way he kept shivering and glancing around the room every thirty seconds.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” Remus asked after a solid ten minutes of watching Sirius twitch about.

“D’you not feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“The… thing,” Sirius said, scrubbing at the back of his neck and looking around again. “Like there’s something watching us.”

Remus frowned and glanced around as well, wrinkling his nose. Then he shrugged. “Can’t smell anything,” he said. “But the moon’s still waning, my senses aren’t at a hundred percent.” He thought for a minute. “Maybe you’re just antsy from being on the wagon. We should go the butcher’s tomorrow, see how much cow blood he’ll give us in exchange for not reporting him about those dodgy steaks he’s saying are venison.”

Sirius nodded and settled back into his chair. “Good idea.”

Neither of them mentioned the sound from over by the door that sounded an awful lot like an impatient sigh. It was probably just the wind.

* * *

 By two weeks in, Sirius was taking cow’s blood in a thermos to work and only just managing to pass it off as tomato soup. It didn’t help much with the twitchiness when he was at home, but it steadied him enough to be able to drag Regulus out of the hospital by the scruff of his neck when the turned up in the basement, sniffing around for bags of O-negative.

Remus focused on getting the worst of the water damage covered up with posters and book jackets, trying not to think about how he felt a slight draft on the back of his neck every time he tacked up a Stone Roses poster or muttered complaints about the previous owners’ taste in wallpaper.

* * *

 Things came to a head after about three weeks. Sirius was shuddering every time he walked past the kettle, and Remus was growing more and more anxious about he imminent full moon, taking out most of his aggression on the hospital floors.

“Jesus, Lupin, steady on! You’ll wear a hole in the floor,” warned one of the porters, Gavin, carefully navigating the wheelchair with the old man he was transporting around the splash-zone.

Remus didn’t look up from the stain he was attacking, just scowled and mopped even harder. Sirius watched him worriedly over the laundry bags he was meant to be taking downstairs.

“We need to do something about your anger,” he told Remus later when they were back at the house, sprawled on the couch flipping through channels.

“You don’t fucking say,” Remus muttered, giving the remote a particularly vicious stab when it got stuck on John Torode complaining about an overcooked salmon.

“I’m being serious,” Sirius insisted. “Look I even gave up a fantastic opportunity for a pun there. We need to talk about this.”

Remus huffed a sigh and turned of the telly. “So talk.”

Sirius gave him a look. “Listen,” he said. “The whole point of getting the house, getting jobs at the hospital, acting like we’re, you know, human – it’s about quality of life, yeah? We get established, we make connections, we work out a system for handling the messy bits-”

“You mean like the constant danger of us accidentally murdering everyone we know and care about.”

“Yeah, those bits. It only works if we both _try,_ okay? I can’t do this on my own. If we want to be better versions of ourselves, if we want to appreciate the best parts of being human-”

“Oh yeah, the best parts,” Remus said sardonically. “Who knew the best parts involved cleaning up other peoples piss and shit for five quid an hour and not being able to see your family because they all think you’re dead?”

“This is better than the alternative and you know it,” Sirius said quietly.

Remus deflated. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I just. I was going to be a teacher, you know?”

Sirius gave him a sympathetic nudge. “I get it,” he said. “Sometimes it feels like-”

“OOOOOOH my GOD can you two talk about LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES?” someone shouted.

Sirius and Remus whipped around and almost fell off the sofa.

There was a young woman with red hair leaning against the wall behind them, head tipped back and arms folded, looking immeasurably bored.

“I mean for fuck’s sake,” she said to the ceiling. “Sure, well done, you’re both fucking miserable bastards because you both survived your horrible encounters with the jaws of death and now you’re being FORCED to GO OUTSIDE and TALK TO PEOPLE and your DIAMOND SHOES ARE TOO TIGHT, I BET. FUCK, do you have any fucking idea what I wouldn’t give to leave this shitty house to go and clean up some hospital piss? Count your SHITTY BLESSINGS I swear to god!”

Sirius was staring at the woman with wide eyes, clutching Remus’ sleeve and shaking him a bit as if to make sure he was also seeing this. Remus himself was clutching the back of the couch like it was the only real thing in the universe, opening and closing his mouth like a fish as he failed miserably to form some words. 

“-I’m going insane just _listening_ to you two having the same bloody conversation about twenty-three times a day, do you even _realise_ how much you talk about this shit? There are OTHER THINGS TO TALK ABOUT, did you not _see_ Bake-Off last night? The CUSTARD, I mean COME ON!”

Remus finally managed to scrape together enough of his faculties to form a word.

“Whu?” he mumbled.

The woman ignored him. “And here I was so excited when I realised what you were, thought FINALLY, something INTERESTING, who know haunting a vampire and a werewolf would turn out being WORSE THAN TWILIGHT?”

Sirius made an odd sort of quiet screaming noise at the back of his throat.

The woman glanced in their direction at last and jumped when she found them gaping at her. She glanced over her shoulder and then back at them, frowning. “Wait. Can… can you see me right now?” she asked tentatively, stepping forwards.

Neither Sirius nor Remus could manage a nod, but Remus found it in himself to choke out a sound that more or less worked as an affirmative. The woman’s hands flew to her mouth.

“Sorry,” she said, voice muffled. “Um. Hi. I’m Lily. Ghost. That’s me. Nice to meet you.”

There was a lengthy pause.

“Likewise,” Sirius said feebly.

An incredulous laugh burst past Lily’s fingers.

Then she disappeared.

Sirius blinked at the spot where she’d been standing and then turned to Remus, who was already staring back at him.

“Don’t say it,” Sirius said.

“Say what?”

“I told you so.”

“I wasn’t gonna say that.”

“No? What were you going to say, then?”

“I was gonna say, do you think she can get her head inside the walls and see what the fuck is wrong with the pipes?”

* * *

 “So you’re saying you don’t know how you died?”

“Nope.”

“You can’t remember anything about it?”

“Sod-all.”

“What’s the last thing you do remember?”

Lily frowned and thought for a minute. “Me and Sev were trying to sort the plumbing,” she said slowly. “I remember buying tools at B&Q and walking home. It was raining.”

“Why not just call a plumber?” Sirius asked. “There’s one up the road.”

“Him and Sev didn’t get on, and there wasn’t another one in the area we could afford.”

Remus and Sirius both sighed and sat back against the couch, watching their new housemate intently. Lily, having gotten over the initial excitement of talking to people and therefore able to stay visible for more than a few minutes at a time, settled further into her armchair and crossed her arms.

“So let’s work with what we do know,” Remus said, rubbing his eyes with a finger and thumb. “You were getting your PhD in… what, physics?”

“Yeah. Sev was chemistry.”

“And you were friend with him for…?”

“Like, thirteen years?” Lily hazarded. “I don’t know. We met just before we started secondary school. Stayed mates all the way through, went to the same uni, figured we might as well stick together through post-grad and beyond, so when Sev’s arse of a dad popped his clogs we used the inheritance on the house.”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “You bought a house together? And you’re saying you were just mates?”

Lily scowled. “We were best friends,” she said. “Me and Sev… we didn’t have other people, alright? Don’t get on with our families, and we fell out of contact with our school friends when we left for uni – there’s not many people who actually leave our town, see. But me and Sev wanted more, so we got out. Moved here, got our degrees, got the house. Didn’t have anyone but each other.”

“Yeah, you’re a pair of real inspirations,” Sirius said dryly.

“No, she’s got a point,” Remus said. “It’s the same where I’m from, towns like that are practically made to keep people under, why d’you think there are so many songs about – um. Not the point right now. Is there anything else, Lily? Anything you can think of that might be keeping you here?”

“You mean like unfinished business?”

“If you like.”

Lily chewed on her thumbnail. “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, maybe the stuff with my sister? We didn’t exactly… part on great terms. Last time we talked she was about to marry this posh wanker with a moustache and no neck, and I tried to convince her not to go through with it and we fought, and… I don’t know. I miss her, sometimes. Sev always said it’s best to just cut people who hurt you out of your life, but. She was still my sister, you know?”

Sirius shifted uncomfortably and didn’t answer. Remus fiddled with a coaster from the coffee table, thinking.

“So what if we got hold of your sister?” he asked. “Where’s she living now?”

“Surrey, probably. They were looking at houses there for after the wedding – you know, suburbs for the kids but close enough to London for Vernon’s job.”

“Ugh, his name’s Vernon?”

“Yeah, Vernon Dursley. Like I said. Wanker.”

“Hang on, let’s think about this for a minute,” Sirius interrupted. “Even if we did manage to track her down, what would you do, exactly? Appear unto her in a beam of light and convince her to engage in an emotionally charged heart-to-heart? Would that be before or after she stopped screaming?”

Lily drooped. “Good point.”

They lapsed into silence, staring at nothing.

“So now what?” Remus asked.

Lily sniffed and shrugged.

Sirius glanced between them pensively. “Chippy?”

They both stared at him for a moment.

“Yeah, alright,” Lily said after a minute. “I mean, I can’t eat, but. Yeah. That sounds nice.”

Remus nodded. “Georgio’s or Steve’s?”

“Steve’s, it’s closer. Let me get my keys.”

 

They ended up sitting in companionable silence around the kitchen table, surrounded by a mess of greasy paper and half-empty cups of mushy peas. Lily looked a little envious as she watched the other two eat but seemed to mostly just be enjoying the familiar ritual.

“This’ll be great,” Sirius said after a while, wiping some curry sauce off his chin. “The three of us, all sharing a house. It’s so… normal.”

“Sirius,” Remus said without looking up from where he was methodically peeling all the batter off his cod. “Literally not one single part of this is normal. We’re a vampire with a guilt complex and a werewolf with anxiety being haunted by a physics student with appalling taste in wallpaper.”

Lily started trying to pick up chips to throw at him.

“Or!” Sirius replied with terrifying optimism. “We’re a trio of unlikely friends who embark on a moving journey of self-improvement together, overcoming our inner demons and ultimately realising our full potential as mostly-human beings!”

“You need to watch less daytime TV,” Lily told him.


End file.
